Is Raanjhanaa the tale of an irrational, impassioned, obsessive lover, or thinly disguised male supremacist storytelling?

All the articulate criticism about the glorification of stalking in Raanjhanaa has led me to some serious introspection and self-doubt. Have I become so corrupted by Bollywood that I’m unable to recognize problematic gender stereotyping and latent misogyny of the films I’m a part of?

Without prejudice to critical reviews, there is another possible reading of the film. Despite its gimmicky, populist and male favouring one-liners, the film may be interpreted within its generic context. Raanjhanaa is the tragedy of an irrational, impassioned, obsessive lover. Depicting such a crazed state-of-mind on-screen requires the lover doing things that go against ordinary and socially accepted expressions of love. Kundan’s wrist slitting is neither intelligent, nor advisable. It is a device that portrays the crazed intensity of his passion. Similarly driving his scooter into the Ganges with Zoya behind is a reflection of his shock and trauma upon discovering that she loves another man, not an attempt to murder.

Kundan is a deeply flawed character. He’s selfish, delusional, mercurial, thoughtless, hugely impulsive, self-destructive and bad tempered! However an easy rejection of him is difficult and he is rendered endearing in his naïve innocence. He actually believes that Zoya will remember and reciprocate his love in spite of differences of geography, religion, class, education and thinking. Writer Himanshu Sharma has created a hero harking back to the literary tradition of the intensely-passionate-deeply- flawed-self-destructive-tragic-male-protagonist, seen in almost every ‘great’ tragedy in literature be it Saratchandra’s Devadas or Shakespeare’s Othello. Sharma’s Raanjhanaa remains consistent with the generic patterns of the tragic form, as we are compelled to sympathise with this problematic male protagonist who mistreats the very women he loves but is redeemed by the author in a noble death.

In my eyes Kundan never becomes a serious figure of threat because Zoya is never shown to be scared of him. Her first response to his overture is a fearless confident taunt and a tight slap. Because Zoya consistently remains unflinching and unafraid, Kundan never fully becomes that sinister, threatening, figure of the dangerous stalker.

Raanjhanaa is an unapologetic celebration of crazy love. A story of how love makes otherwise rational people behave in a stupidly self-damaging manner. Why else would an educated and smart Zoya engineer a bizarre, Tughlaqesque and almost certainly dangerous charade of a having a Muslim boyfriend and marrying him with parental consent in a traditional ceremony? Why would the otherwise shrewd and ever-practical Jasjit play along? They act in sheer desperation to realise their love. Feisty Bindiya’s love is undeterred despite humiliation and beatings and it makes her pray to Gau-mata for Zoya’s death, but also participate the next moment in a plan to rid Zoya of an unwanted suitor. What except deep love for his friend would drive the otherwise eminently sensible and grounded Murari to participate in unrealistic plans to win an evidently unattainable girl. Kundan isn’t the only one eccentric in love.

Zoya’s character has been criticized for being manipulative, cold and heartless. To me Zoya was just a very human, and thus imperfect young girl dealing with confusing, contradictory and eventually very painful matters of the heart. What is so wrong with an adolescent 14-year old being flattered and responsive to the devotion of a young boy, being both curious and nervous about that first kiss, having her anger at Kundan’s lie dissipate into tears at his hysterical wrist-slashing? What is wrong if eight years later she has moved on? In fact Zoya’s character is not calculating but naive in trusting Kundan’s friendship, she’s honest about her lack of love for him, about her boyfriend. She’s perfectly frank and sensible when she asks him if he intends to ruin her life for that one childish mistake she made? And when she lies, it is to save Kundan the pain of realizing that Zoya in fact did not reject him because he was a Hindu, that she simply didn’t love him! With Zoya, Sharma taps another classic literary trope- the unattainable lady love, the mistress-on-a pedestal who the poet will never attain but continually pine for. Zoya is finally redeemed despite all her flaws when she says wretchedly in the climax to Kundan that ‘The world will spit on me if I fall in love with you, but I think I have.’ Zoya’s tragedy is that she must plot murder to prevent herself from falling in love with the very man who ruined her life and accidentally killed her fiancé.

Raanjhanaa, like Sharma’s earlier Tanu Weds Manu is a film generously laced with dialogue that reflects a male-dominated worldview, a stereo-type infested, though not hate-filled, folk wisdom and wry humour regarding gender relations and matters of the heart. Sharma’s characters speak the thoughts and language of the world where they belong- the largely socially conservative, patriarchal world of small town India. And so a 16 year old Bollywood buff Kundan reflecting the Bollywood influence on his generation says, “In UP tire or scare a woman into accepting you.” An unpremeditated inter-textual moment! And Murari similarly laments that doctors and engineers often steal the love of mohalla lads. In Sharma’s world men are indulgently helpless and harmlessly exasperated at women. Whether it is the inability of Manu’s father to check his vulgar ill-behaved wife in Tanu Weds Manu, or Raanjhanaa’s Jasjit lamenting that plans born of women’s minds cannot be trusted; Sharma’s men are bewildered at the ways of women. This may make them conservative but not misogynists. Both of Sharma’s screenplays depict the world as is. If Zoya’s parents are conservative Muslims, they will oppose an inter-religious marriage. If Kundan’s father is the head priest of the Kashi Vishwanath temple, the family will live in a Brahmin ghetto with Brahmin neighbours. If childhood friends share a sibling-like bond they will not shy away from hitting and abusing one another. But Raanjhanaa is not the story of Muslim-Hindu relations in Benaras, nor is it a study of the social relations between the numerous castes that inhabit the city, and it is certainly not the story of some inaccurately and grandiosely imagined quasi-leftist student political movement threatening to sweep Delhi’s assembly elections. Raanjhanaa is the story of a boy who like the Raanjhaa of folklore fell obsessively in love with an unattainable girl. She loved someone else, and he despite initially trying to help the girl unite with her lover, on learning of her lie to him unthinkingly unleashed a tragedy that ruined the lives of everyone involved and found redemption only in death. A male-centric perspective? Yes. Politically incorrect? Indeed! Disturbing? Certainly! Emotionally compelling? Also! Misogynistic? I beg to differ.

(Swara Bhaskar is an actress based in Mumbai and her films include Raanjhanaa, Listen Amaya, and Tanu Weds Manu. She can be reached at @ReallySwara on Twitter)

Well movies such as this always have a negative impact on bollywood inspiration driven public. Misogyny portrayed by the actor can be detrimental to the people who often engage in eve-teasing and other anti-female activities. There maybe few who take movies as just a story but mass try to imitate the events that occured in the movie at least for a few days till they encounter a so called better movie to empower their minds. Yes it is sad that stereotyping an Indian girl from banaras in a movie but viewers should stick to the truth that it is only a movie and that copying the events could harm us and people around us.

from:
Finlay Marak

Posted on: Jul 23, 2013 at 09:00 IST

Good publicity stunt. Swara Swara Swara, of course you will justify the misogyny in this film in an article to the public. After all, if you can't justify it how will you live with yourself? You write well. Your language is good. So you know how to make selling out sound intellectual. It's not Zoya who was manipulative, it's your film maker who is manipulative. Look at how he gave Zoya touches that would make us want to dislike her and like Kundan. You can couch your film in all the educated prose you can summon up but the truth is still that Kundan's stalking was justified, glorified and deliberately depicted as lovable by your director. Did he ask you to write this article or was it your PR agency that said it's important for your image to do this? Disappointed to read an educated girl like you speaking up for male chauvinism and patriarchy. What a sellout!

from:
Anita The Feminist

Posted on: Jul 23, 2013 at 00:46 IST

How diversified observations and discussions on a modernised indian flavor of primitive Shakespearean eternals!
I am surprised about the extent to which people can infer. Hats off to Swara and all the wise commenters!
Although I am not sure whether it was required or not.But it was all fun reading it like we do with hours of TV ads.However the film was all entertaining with a healing music of the legend and all the artists performed really well to make it look realistic (except those pointed out by JNU wise man) and were successful to bind till the end.

from:
Shivam Shukla

Posted on: Jul 22, 2013 at 13:00 IST

Thanks Swara. Exactly my thoughts. That must mean I got this movie the way the director expected. And most folks did. Those few who didn't are disconnected from middle class small town India. Too cocooned and urbane to get it. They can get Gangs of Wasseypur because that's how they really see small town India. But they don't get this.

from:
Sonu

Posted on: Jul 22, 2013 at 08:14 IST

First of all hats off for brilliant performance by you.But what you have told about zoya being not manipulative i dont agree. When she is very clear that kundan is in love with her then why she should take help to get ride of man which she doesnt want to marry.It is very true that people in love become so obsessed that they want to do anything to get their love .Same as kundan, zoya and bindiya were doing.I was convinced with kundan and bindiya acts but zoya way of taking revenge was not at all justifiable and not even convincingly portrayed .

from:
kamal kant singh

Posted on: Jul 22, 2013 at 00:51 IST

My respect to Swara for this great piece, thank you! It is not an easy task to defend Raanjhana while the blockwarts of political correctness occupy every corner of the media. The reason the persons involved in the massive attack on the movie refuse to engage in a serious discussion about the story and its characters is simple - they are only pushing their own agenda. With a little bit of good will one can strip almost any movie or book off any meaning and transform them into a political issue. I am also afraid that further discussion with those people is like fighting against windmills since the distant wind that keeps them going will not stop. As I already said in a comment to another article, the freedom of storytelling will have to give way to politically correct storytelling. As we can see, it is already happening. Anyways, thank you and all the best.

from:
Natalia

Posted on: Jul 22, 2013 at 00:30 IST

Excelllent article.....good sense of humour presented in writing....literally started laughing after reading second stanza.....alas gud end....

from:
Shahbaz

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 23:53 IST

Ranjhana portrays dhanush as a passionate,obsessive,crazily frantic and a callous lover of Zoya.These charactersticks are acceptable as long as they do not infringe into zoya's life.
Misogynism and patriarchial mindset , which still prevails in india is clearly show-cased in this movie.Zoya's life is continuously dented by dhanush's deeds once she makes the mistake of showing some early-age-out of curiosity love for him and then she continuously pays off up-til the end when she finally has to kill him for making up to all the irrational conditions and circumstances that the world has put up in front of her .

from:
Siddharth Gupta

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 23:51 IST

Ranjhanna shows a boy's love for a girl to which we can call a true love for zoya this film has taken a good concept from social life of india & this film indicates that all humans should be equal whether he or she is hindu or muslim or sikh or christian but its our cultures and customs which never gave us a freedom even to marry with some other religion's person wake up india no casteism should be there in our country only after that we will be able to develop our thoughts after all god has created only human beings but casteism is created by us .....

from:
Deepak

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 23:21 IST

Why does all love in bollywood have to be so angst driven, tragic and always about the 'male pain' ? This tradition from Devdas,laila-majnu or heer-ranjha and even from Ramayana itself where Rama banishes Sita after accusations of impurity from his dhobi is all about the reader or viewer identifying with the pain of the man,the anguish he feels for not obtaining HIS love while in the process tormenting the woman and objectifying her. While these works of literature and mythology are from a different time and different society to see a movie like Ranjhana perpetuate the same formula of misogyny is the true tragedy of the modern indian mindset. It cannot seem to break open out its shackles and worse it pretends to be liberated and makes a false of a empowered or liberated woman (even a muslim woman one) but in the end it always surfaces the tried and tested centuries old backwardness that layers buried in the indian psyche and male idea of love as a selfish male pursuit.Agree with Swara.

from:
Suresh rk

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 21:07 IST

well.....much brainstorming had been done by the eloquent thinkers, penning down there persuasive thoughts, about a Bollywood movie, which was only meant for the entertainment purpose. The movie tries to highlight the lifestyle prevailing in the holy city of Benaras, and indeed, brings out a small, hilarious part of it in the form of a love-
story of an obsessed road-side Romeo. The characters and the story-line is very similar to that observed in the day-to-day life of small towns of India, which are often ignored by the philanthropists and the laureates when they put in their thoughts to describe such places.
I appreciate the blogger here (Ms Swara Bhaskar) for perceiving the movie through a bigger and clearer lens, unlike another one (who also happens to be a lady),who blames the director for the misogynistic approach and celebrating the male dominance and intra-compatibility....

from:
anurag chauhan

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 20:11 IST

I agree with the author's view, who is also coactress of this movie. For one watch, there are lots of different dramatic incidents and craziness in love of male protagonist, which binds viewer towards the story, but if you watch it other than just entertainment, you can find many unrealistic events shown. movies reflect and affect mind of youngesters very much, will not such craziness in love like stalking, being mad for the girl, silting wrist, anger, selfishness shown in the movie will provoke and encourage the youngers to do the same. A much needed and serious question is it. we go to the movie, watch it and come back but in mind of teenegers and youngesters, may b these type of movies can glorify deeds of the male protagonist of the movie.

from:
vikram pratap

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 19:27 IST

By publishing the 'Crazy love' article on hindi movie Raanjhanaa in main section, THE HINDU has wasted its prime space.It could have been shifted to sunday pullouts.Devoting a full page article on movies in main section deprives readers of a leisure reading of serious news on national and international.

from:
BASKARAN R V

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 19:14 IST

Ranjhaana tale of depicting male stereotyped love imbibed with all vagaries certainly puts us in an awkward moment for some time in the mood of celebration or in mourn with the story.Men throughout in history have marked their passion for women either in form of love or lust.but every society has its structural constraint in which we remain engulfed,if hindu-muslim matrimony is not popular,this movie has shown also the positive side as how kundan was loved by joya's father and family before joya arrived later. this movie brings out the courage to express if not discriminate as this movie tried to show implicitly.

from:
tushar

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 14:15 IST

I've been reflecting on the exact concept discussed by Swara in this article - the "latent misogyny" portrayed in Raanjhana. And I'm not saying its a universal opinion - I saw the movie with my mother and she never commented on it so maybe she didn't even think of this aspect. Swara is in a much better position to make a judgment on whether it actually is misogyny or not considering she could even claim to know what is in the mind of the director, but still, just blaming it on existing outlooks in small-town India is not enough to justify it as not misogynist. All it shows is that most of small town India has a mildly misogynist outlook and that is what is disturbing as it leads to events like the recent burning of the rape victim in Etawah

from:
Shruti Singh

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 13:50 IST

Eloquently spoken, Swara is a thinking and talented actor who has a bright future.
I think its prudish to pigeonhole this film as something as bad as 'sympathising with stalkers'

from:
Manas

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 12:35 IST

It is heartening to read this review. Though belonging to the old generation but pragmatic enough to accept change I am convinced by the day that the crude behaviour towards women in public places and private, excessive boozing, lewdness and all such deterioration in culture can be traced directly to movies in which the 'heroes' indulge in such acts in the name of love and chivalry. Sexulal liberties exhibited in movies may be an important factor in the increasing incidents of rape...of even 2 year old babies and 80 year oldies. Of course bollywood and other 'woods' would vehemently deny this...

from:
S.Rajagopalan

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 11:55 IST

When I watched this movie I was keen to know about the characters . When realized that Commodore C Uday Bhaskar is Swara's father my expectations increased. Mr Bhaskar, as I knew him from his writings on foreign relations is a man of intellect. And this piece shows , so is Swara.

And for Raanjhanaa, I would say was a movie that would fall in a Shakespearean Tragedy. It does not glorify stalking and for that matter I agree with Swara.

Although a good watch, people need not to emulate what Male protagonist does in the movie, just watch it for entertainment.

from:
Hulk

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 11:30 IST

Your article makes interesting reading. But it seems to me that you are trying to justify all that is wrong with the film simply because you are associated with it. How do you differentiate between conservatism and misogyny? Does one not arise because of the other? And this is so deeply ingrained in the way women are portrayed and viewed in the media that its just taken for granted and people think it is justified. I don't buy your explanation. Sorry.

from:
Deepa

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 09:55 IST

Spot on, couldn't agree more with the author. She makes certain very valid points which most people tend to paper over.

from:
anil kotwal

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 06:56 IST

Even though everything in the movie, right from protagonist slitting his wrist, his helping Zoya to get her lover, the lead actor's friend helping him despite loving him so much, the story binds you throughout. The brilliant acting especially the writer of this article and Mohd. Zeeshan Ayub is commendable.

from:
Mohsin

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 03:41 IST

Three articles on this piece of drivel! What a waste!

from:
Jay Ravi

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 03:32 IST

As someone presently studying in JNU and having spent two years in Varanasi(B.H.U), I would like to signal the following--
1) The way Kundan and Murari can enter into Zoya's house is too much filmy, with regard to realities of Varanasi and the religions they belong to 2) Zoya could slap Kundan in public, Kundan could illtreat Bindiya physically in public. What about the onlookers of Varansi? Do the Raanjhanaa team what happens in Varanasi thereafter?
3) Zoya indeed cheats Kundan while she mentions religion to be the reason and at the same time seeks his help for marrying Jasgit (Akram for Kundan).
4)The way debate in JNU over a thief (Kundan) is portrayed, is it to show that the debate culture in JNU is so unrealistic....
5) The way Jasjit tries to cheat during exams, does that not demean JNU student leaders whereas in reality JNU student leaders have been among bright students of JNU. Moreover, JNU has the glorious tradition of open book exam.The scene of Jasjit pulling Zoya's hand?

from:
Binay Kumar Pathak

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 03:30 IST

Great article and analysis of a wonderful movie, but what a language.
Dear, i had to use google extensively to comprehend the write up.

BTW, you did a great job

from:
hitesh

Posted on: Jul 21, 2013 at 03:15 IST

Wow, this is the most articulate, well-argued article I have read in a long time. And the writer is a Bollywood actor. There are intelligent people in Indian cinema. Hooray!

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